About a year before I came to Delena sandalwood had been found in the neighbourhood, and at once traders began to get it cut and to export it to China. Till then the people had no idea that the wood growing around them was of any special value. “What has this to do with the Delena Church?” you may ask, and my reply is “Dohore,” the word that has been used to me so often that I am tired of it, and pass it on to you. It just means, “Wait a bit. Don’t be in a hurry.”

A very fair church can be built in Papua at a cost of from three to five pounds, but the trouble is they do not last long, and the one I found at Delena was in a sadly dilapidated condition when I began to use it. An expenditure of a couple of pounds would have put the building in good repair, but Sunday after Sunday we held our services in the shabby church, which let the rain in on us, and the people had their attention repeatedly drawn to the fact, and were told what other villages had done to supply themselves with a good church. They were slow to move, and nothing had been done when I left for my first holiday, with the conviction that there was nothing for it but to repair the church at the expense of the Mission.

Upon landing again at Delena my attention was attracted by a pile of freshly cut sandalwood stacked just inside the Mission fence. For a moment I wondered whether my teacher had been doing a little trading on his own account, or whether a trader had stacked his wood inside our fence for safety. “Dohore,” said the teacher, “you shall know all about the wood when you are in the house and I can talk to you.”

South Sea men usually go a long way round when they have a story to tell, and once in the house Matapo settled himself comfortably and got ready for a real good time. His story would be too long, so I will condense it.

“You remember,” said he, “that when you went to Thursday Island with Tamate in the Mary you took Naime and Henao. They saw many strange and many new things there, and when they returned to Delena they talked to their friends of what they had seen, and told of the stone church you took them to on the Sunday (the Quetta Memorial Church, now the Cathedral). How many times they told of that Church I do not know, but one evening some of the men came from the village, and said it would be good if they had a Beritani church in their village like the one Naime and Henao had seen in Thursday Island. “Such a church,” said Matapo, “costs a lot of money. It is no good your asking Donisi to build you one like that. He could not afford it.”

“We have talked of that,” answered the Delena men, “and we think we can pay for it ourselves.”

“How? You have no money.”

“Just so, but ‘dohore’. We have sandalwood growing on our land. That is worth money. We can cut it and sell it, and so pay for our church.”

As good as their word they went to work, cut and brought in the wood I found stacked inside the gate, and asked me to sell it and buy material for their Beritani church. It realized £72, and to that a friend in England added £30, and some friends in Sydney a few pounds more.

A concrete building was out of the question, but timber and iron were bought in Sydney, and the children’s ship, the John Williams, helped by bringing it all to Delena. Before we could build there was pick and shovel work to do, for the side of the hill had to be cut away to provide a site, and then we all turned carpenters and builders, and are rather proud of our work—partly because we think we made a good job of it, but more because the Delena men and women, and boys and girls—for they all had a share in it—contributed most of the cost, and that when they had little, if any, money in the village. The sandalwood they got for that church would have made them rich for a time, but they handed it over, and I have never heard one man regret that they did so.

Dressed up in Paint and Feathers.

See page 30.